Photo from Shanghai Daily. more ›

Xinhua: Foreign reporters enjoy greater freedom covering China's "two sessions":

Andrew Kirillov, Beijing bureau chief of the Itar-Tass News Agency in Russia, appeared joyous when registering to cover China's upcoming "two sessions", not only because he was to witness the important political event again, but he would find it much easier to locate interviewees. more ›

Today I saw reports on CCTV-12 related to the crackdown on porn sites. And unlike other reports on murder, theft, and sexual crimes, I thought there was a problem with these reports. more ›

The state media had reported around May of this year that the proposed Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev was canceled. In the report just linked to, it says that the official reason why the thing was canceled was because of health and environmental concerns, while the supposed "real reason" was that residents in the maglev's path were starting a petition. Reading over this report reminds of how this issue has been ping-ponging back and forth for years. We thought perhaps that the ginormous cost of the thing, including some behind-the-scenes bickering between Zhejiang province and Shanghai regarding the division of construction costs, was the final nail in the coffin, but if you think about it, since when can a few petitioners writing letters to their National People's Congress "reps" can hardly hold back the ineluctable forces of progress? more ›

Question: “Who are three people who’ve never been in my kitchen?” Or lately: "Name three people hating on the once mighty US dollar." On Tuesday, Cheng Siwei, the vice chairman of China’s National People’s Congress suggested that China’s foreign exchange regulators ought to consider shifting the country’s massive USD $1.4 trillion reserve into “stronger” currencies. The greenback has been on a downward spiral since 2003. Little did Cheng know that his remarks would trigger a... more ›

Image from Gemma Kate Thorpe. more ›

The Guardian reports that in Shenzhen, police paraded a bunch of prostitutes and johns in public: more ›

This year's Bal de Debutantes (Debutantes' Ball) at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris will feature two Chinese 'princesses': more ›

After seeing this story on the Chinese legislative body, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, deciding not to criminalize sex-selective abortion, Shanghaiist was admittedly surprised that this practice had not actually already been outlawed. Turns out that currently, selective abortion is only in violation of much less stringent family planning regulations which have no clear provisions for any sort of punishment. These regulations do have a significant effect on clinics practicing selective abortion, but still a very limited reach when it comes to individuals actually getting the abortions. Some of the reasons the lawmakers shied away from this decision are understandable: more ›

Image from Stefan Landsberger. more ›

Looks like the Shanghai-to-Hangzhou Maglev train we told you about recently is a go. That is, if you trust Xinhua. And when will the project be completed? You guessed it -- 2010: more ›

Sexual harassment, which apparently had been legal in China, is now on its way to becoming a crime, according to Xinhua: more ›